


Give Me Love

by erisjade16



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vikings, Angst, Ed Sheeran - Freeform, F/M, Interracial Relationship, Ivar (Vikings) Being an Asshole, Ivar (Vikings) is a Little Shit, Ivar the Boneless - Freeform, Jealous Ivar (Vikings), Lost Love, Love, Rekindled Flames, Romance, Smut, give me love, interracial erotica, song inspiration
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-19 17:14:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17605535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erisjade16/pseuds/erisjade16
Summary: What do you do, how do you behave, how do you go on, when the ghosts of your past reappear?Give Me Love - Ed Sheeran, Song Inspiration





	1. Give Me Love Like Her

**Author's Note:**

> I love comments.

**_Give me love like her_ ** **_  
_ **

**_'Cause lately I've been waking up alone_ **

 

“What’re you looking at?”

Hvitserk nearly twists completely around in his seat, peering around the edge of their booth to follow his brother's riveted gaze.  

Hvitserk doesn't see what Ivar sees.  He can't make out the ghost made flesh sitting only a handful of tables over. He doesn’t know.

Her hair is much shorter now, styled in a messy pixie-cut, certain strands of which shine a deep, dark purple.  Or, maybe, blue? He can’t really tell from this distance, in this haze of dim, unflattering light. Yet, Ivar would know the line of her neck anywhere.  His lips had mapped the expanse of it too many times to count.

Her clothes are different, as well.  He remembers her in t-shirts and blue jeans.  Now, she’s wearing high-heels and a scoop-neck sweater that shows off the smooth brown skin of a partially bared shoulder.  But, Ivar knows the curve of her back, the way it bowed and arched beneath his rough fingertips.

_A ghost_ , he tells himself, only to convince his pounding heart.  

 

**_Paint splattered teardrops on my shirt_ **

**_Told you I'd let them go_ **

 

“What the fuck’re you looking at?” Hvitserk says, irritated now, and Ivar doesn't bother to respond.

Instead, his fingers tighten around the fork clasped in them.  He watches when she leans forward, reaching over the table, and the neck of her sweater gapes just the tiniest bit.   She swipes something from her companion’s plate, laughing as she pops the morsel into her mouth, and Ivar swallows because he can almost taste her now.  The warm, wet, distinctly feminine taste of her lights across his tongue as if 7 years haven't passed since the last time he tasted her.

 

**_And that I'll fight my corner_ **

**_Maybe tonight I'll call ya_ **

 

Hvitserk gives up.  Throws his napkin on the table and slides clumsily out of the booth. Heads off in the direction of the lobby, mumbling something about making a phone call, leaving his brother to watch.  

To stare.

To wonder.  

He scowls at her, silently willing her to turn and meet his gaze while simultaneously hoping she doesn't.  He wants her to pay her bill and go just as badly as he wants to see the light sparking in her dark eyes.

It’s stupid and juvenile and it fills him with red-hot, irrational anger, yet he wonders if her voice still sounds the same.  Swears he can hear it _right now_ , pitched high and gasping out his name.

She never looks his way.  Never feels the weight of his gaze on her skin.  She laughs and smiles with her companion. Crosses and uncrosses her legs beneath the table.

She never sees him.  

 

**_After my blood turns into alcohol_ **

**_No, I just wanna hold ya_ **

 

He's relieved when she pushes out of her chair.  However, it is short-lived. She moves toward him instead of away, her head bowed slightly, eyes downcast, distracted.  And the closer she gets, the faster and louder Ivar’s heart pounds, need and desire suddenly burning through his veins - the desire to look into those eyes again, to hear the way his name rolls off of her tongue.

He comes to himself very suddenly, the lights and sounds of this little restaurant almost too bright and loud.  His mind registers her striding past him and he’s moving even before he’s decided to do so, his hand flashing out, thick fingers curling around her wrist.

She doesn't cry out, he’ll give her credit for that. He feels her whole body go tense, instinctively twisting her arm in his grasp.  And then, finally, she sees him, those fierce eyes snapping down to his face.

She stops.  

She stares.

Surprise lights her pretty face before her features smooth out and she's simply looking at him.  

Silent.  

Waiting.  

But there are no words, just the warmth and smoothness of her skin against his rough palm and the thick, heavy weight of his tongue sitting uselessly in his mouth.  Heart still beating, pounding, and he wonders if she can see it there, beneath the fabric of his sweater - see it’s frantic, uncertain, angry beating.

 

**_Give a little time to me or burn this out_ **

**_We’ll play hide and seek to turn this around_ **

Silence still, twisting and churning between them, and he sees the shift behind her eyes, the softness he knew only he ever got to see, even when he was at his worst.  Care and concern that seven years had neither dampened or diminished, and his heart twists painfully.

Her lips part, the tip of her pink tongue coming out to moisten her full lower lip, and he narrows his eyes, focuses on that bit of supple flesh.  Remembers strawberry kisses and bourbon-laced sighs. Rain on lazy afternoons and the slide of her flesh against his own.

His fingers tighten on her wrist.  Her pulse jumps there and he can vividly recall the sound of it in his ears.  

Not fair.

Not right.

She is a ghost.  A memory. Long gone, though, regretfully, not easily forgotten.

 

**_All I want is the taste that your lips allow_ **

**_My, my, my, my oh give me love_ **

 

Someone calls her name and she turns toward the sound, brows drawn in irritation, though he’s not sure where that irritation is directed.  Wishes it was directed at him; it would be easier that way. But, there’s that softness in her eyes again, a question waiting there, hanging there, and she gently twists her wrist out of his grasp.  Turns on her heel and moves back the way she came, leaving him angry and speechless with the taste of strawberries and bourbon growing sharper in his mouth.

He clutches the edge of the table.  Watches the roll and sway of her lush hips.  Watches her pluck her coat from the back of her chair and walk away without so much as a glance backward, and he’s both furious and relieved that she didn’t look back.  Isn’t sure if he’d be able to handle it. Isn’t really sure **_what_ ** the fuck he wants in this moment.  

 

**_My, my, my, my oh give me love_ **

 

And, then, she’s gone again.  And Ivar spends the rest of the night trying to ignore her ghost.


	2. Give Me Love Like Never Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her...

**_Give me love like never before_ **

**_'Cause lately I've been craving more_ **

 

There’s sunlight in his hair.  

 

For a moment, she can’t think of anything else.  The noises of the little cafe melt away and she’s simply standing there with a fresh cup of coffee in hand, watching Ivar, who’s looking down at something laid out on the table in front of him.  And there’s sunlight in his hair. Sunlight that makes the dark blonde strands look like they’re lit with burnished gold, and she feels her heart shift almost painfully inside her chest.

 

She hates that she still feels this way about him, that she still sees sunlight in his hair, or that she still catches the scent of his cologne when she’s least expecting it - warm and cloying and sticking to her fingertips as if seven years haven’t passed since the last time she touched him or held the taste of him on her tongue.  

 

Seeing him a week ago had been unexpected.  Painful. Exhilarating. Exhausting. Everything she knew it’d be if she’d ever run into him again.  

 

Even more unexpected was the warmth which had bloomed in her chest when their eyes had connected, when the surprise of some stranger grabbing her wrist in the middle of a restaurant had worn off.  No stranger. A ghost, yes. But definitely not a stranger.

 

She wants to be angry, wants to hang on to the harsh words and the staticky silence which had marked their last encounter, the darkness of his bedroom no longer a comfort to her but, rather, a suffocating wall of discontent.  And, anger is far from her now, really. Too much life has been lived since then and anger is a useless emotion.

 

She’s moving before she’s really made the decision to do so, stopping when she’s standing behind the chair opposite him as if pulled by an invisible string, fingers curled around her flimsy cardboard coffee cup.  

 

He doesn’t look up at her, though the tension in his shoulders beneath the navy sweater he’s wearing tells her he’s aware of her presence.  His focus is on the large, leather bound book open in front of him, a book she knows well, with it’s perfect shapes and spirals. Plans and diagrams done in pale, thin pencil.  

 

Always crafting. Always creating.  Structures that will no doubt be brought to life, lifted straight from his pages and constructed artfully using wood and stone and glass.  

 

“Sit.”

 

He doesn’t look up from what he’s doing.  His voice is low, rough at the edges, and there’s less command in that single word than what she knows him capable.  

 

She smiles because this is normal.  She smiles because the sound of his voice still feels like… home.  She smiles because he's still the same asshole who draws graphs and blueprints, diagrams and figures, and the oddest shapes and forms with such a delicate hand.  

 

She sits.  

 

Sips her coffee and glances at the crutches he’s got leaned up against the window to his left.

 

Waits.   Forgets what she was supposed to have been doing before she walked in to find Ivar seated in the corner with sunlight shining in his hair like some twisted halo.

 

“How long have you been back?”  

 

The tone of his voice sounds a bit too much like accusation.

 

“A few months.”

 

His eyes snap up to her and there **_is_** accusation in his deep blue gaze.  She narrows her own eyes at him, silently challenging. Equally accusing.  

 

Ivar shifts in his seat. Closes his leather bound book with a bit too much care.  

 

“For good?”

 

“For… now.”

 

He glances away.  Licks his lips and she notes their fullness.  Remembers how they’d felt pressed to the base of her spine.  Soft, whispered kisses, tangled up in bed sheets and shadow.

 

“It didn't work out,” she blurts out suddenly.  Isn’t exactly sure why she's said it, but the look on his face doesn't change and, for the first time in a long time, a sliver of anger winds its way through her. It flares hot behind the bars of her ribcage and coils loosely around her heart.  “You were right. I was one among millions. Unimportant. Unnoticed.” She taps the side of her cup with a thin finger. “Background noise.”

 

Ivar’s face does change then.  Something softens in his eyes. It’s small and quick and looks a bit like regret. It’s gone as quickly as it had appeared and she smiles wryly at him.  Shakes her head a little.

 

“Water under the bridge, yeah?  I’ve gotta go.”

 

She remembers now, the thing she was supposed to be doing.  That thing which didn't include Ivar and the hint of regret in his eyes.  It didn't include memories of shimmering sunsets reflected in glass and the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck.  And it most certainly didn't include that single stilted and broken _‘I love you’_ aimed at her back as she turned away, pretending not to hear.

 

She shakes her head and she pushes out of her chair.  There’s a warm feeling inside her, a feeling that’s not twined in anger or regret.  It’s soft and fluttering and shifts when Ivar looks at her. Fills her with an aching sort of longing that reminds her of those nights and his fingers on her cheek when he’d thought she was asleep.  Gentle and reverent. Just a secret in the dark, and as hard and arrogant and stubborn as Ivar has always been, those touches were the sweetest she’d ever known.

 

She stands now and her heart somehow swells and settles at the same time.    There’s a moment where she considers bending down and kissing his cheek, her lips catching the corner of his mouth as she’d done so many times before.  And the smell of his cologne is overpowering. Overwhelming. She licks her lips and can taste it there, dark and sweet and delicious.

 

“It was…” she starts to say, searching for something polite and easy, but it’s a lie. Her heart is pounding and she’s squeezing her cup of coffee far too hard.  

 

“Goodbye, Ivar,” she chooses instead, and there’s sadness in her, sharp-edged and heavy and clinging to all the spaces she thought had been free of this man, because there were things that came before this moment.  There was more than just the sunlight in his hair and the memory of his calloused fingertips on her cheek.

 

She leaves, leaves him there to draw and create and build. Feels the empty space inside her more deeply. Tastes his skin when she sips her coffee, though it never occurs to her to throw it out.

**Author's Note:**

> I love comments.


End file.
